I shot a 3-bracket pano yesterday and APG2.7 dies during the detection process. Also, I sometimes exposure blend in Photomatix before going to APG. The problem with this is that the papywizard XML has AEB set to 3 and (in my case) 378 images. I need this changing to 1 and renumbering or remaining images to be 1-126.

So I wrote an XSL styelsheet to do this. If anyone's interested, you can find here:

[uli]XSL stylesheet[/uli][uli]Sample input (378 images) and output (126 images)[/uli][uli]Shortcut to a tool for transforming XML files with XSL if you don't already have something[/uli][uli]Screenshot[/uli]

To use it, just change the variable called no_of_brackets at the top to however many brackets you shot, save it and then transform the original papywizard XML.

The output will be indentical to the original except for the following:

[uli]bracketing nbPicts will be 1[/uli][uli]all brackets greater than 1 will be removed[/uli][uli]pict id's will be resequenced[/uli]

Hope some of you find it useful (way quicker than manually editing a file with 378 images in it

Last edited by mark_anderson_us on Mon May 24, 2010 1:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I've more or less massive problems with your zip...can download & extract it.but the XSLT Test Tool to download with is referred in the install section cant be successfully finalized because of 64bit incompatibilities...

any other idea?which other free program could I use (Win7-64bit) so I can use your script to convert my pw log...?many thanks in advanceGeorg

Last edited by gkaefer on Fri Jun 04, 2010 11:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.

You've probably got MSXML installed so sholuld just need the zip referred to in the "installing" section

let me know if you have problems

Regards

Mark

... not with your zip... I can download it. but in the html description -> install section a the XSLT TEST programm is linked. I also can download this. but its not 64bit compatible...your tip "XSLT Test Tool" is not 64bit capable...

Georg

Last edited by gkaefer on Fri Jun 04, 2010 11:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Do you fancy making an online tool either to reduce the number of shooting position records in a Papywizard XML data file (N-1) or to increase them (1-N) ?

Hi Andrew

I could do the XSL stuff pretty easily, I built a web site some time ago that used an XML with XSl to generate a gallery (for an artist) only thing I've never done is file upload, but can't believe it's that hard. Worst case, I could probably just have them paste the source XML data into a window. Not quite sure I undestand the N-1 and 1-N

Mine took the 3 bracket set from my EOS, discarded exposures 2 and 3 and re-sequenced the remaning exposures to be contiguous. Should be easy to change to allow the user to enter the number of exposures per frame. I guess that's probably the N-1. Curious why anyone would go the other way? Should be easy to do though

Do you fancy making an online tool either to reduce the number of shooting position records in a Papywizard XML data file (N-1) or to increase them (1-N) ?

Hi Andrew

I could do the XSL stuff pretty easily, I built a web site some time ago that used an XML with XSl to generate a gallery (for an artist) only thing I've never done is file upload, but can't believe it's that hard. Worst case, I could probably just have them paste the source XML data into a window. Not quite sure I undestand the N-1 and 1-N

Mine took the 3 bracket set from my EOS, discarded exposures 2 and 3 and re-sequenced the remaning exposures to be contiguous. Should be easy to change to allow the user to enter the number of exposures per frame. I guess that's probably the N-1. Curious why anyone would go the other way? Should be easy to do though

Regards

Mark

Some DSLRs require only a single shutter 'press' to trigger a bracketed exposure sequenece.

If they wished to input the entire image set into APP/APG using the papywizard Import wizard, they would need to have N records per shooting position in the XML fiel rather than just one.

Likewise if you wre to use a Promote Control in-line between the Merlin'sSnap port and the camera.

Papywizard has a setting to support those scenarios but if the user forgot to set it he/she could end up with an XML data file which had only one shot recorded for each bracketed sequence, a 1-N conversion could save the day.

If a user chose to shoot RAW and to create pseudo bracketed expsoures from a single RAW he/she might also want to do a 1-N conversion too.

mediavets wrote:If a user chose to shoot RAW and to create pseudo bracketed expsoures from a single RAW he/she might also want to do a 1-N conversion too.

I had Josef build my TC-handheld for the Panoneed in a way that it writes n shots on each position when the camera is triggered from the head and writes only ONE shot per position when the camera is triggered by the controller directly. So i can use both strategies.Afaik you can have it for Merlin also.

I prefer to have ONE shot written into the xml. This way i trigger PromoteControl or MagicLantern ONCE, the shoot the set of x images, i process the images in Photomatix and put the mapped images together with the xml into APG or PTGui.

I extremely rarely use a bracketed set as stack in APG - i donÂ´t like it.

Well, I had a play last night and got it working so that I can upload an XML and transform it. Believe it or not, the thing I'm stuck on is displaying the result. Ideally, I want the user to get a save as dialog, to save the result. Worst case (for v1.0), is to have the raw XML displayed (without all of the browser's embellishments) so it can be copied and pasted. Posted a question on Stack Overflow, so will hopefully get an answer today

PAXW stands (catchily) for "PapyWizard AEB XML" Wrangler (told you it was catchy!)

This version removes brackets > 1

Any issues, e-mail me the brefore and after XML

Regarding the 1-N, I guess I'm not clear how APG uses the data in the XML. I stripped out brackets 2 and 3 on my 3 bracket shots and it works. But how does APG match the source images with the XML? The XML is a bunch of nodes wtih bracket info and tiem date. The files are now merged with new times and dates and different EXIF (I assume)

If I'm expanding 1 to 7 (for example), what do I need to put in the extra brackets I'm adding in the XML in order to ensure APG finds the files. I iniaitally thought I'd add 1 sec to each bracket that I insert, but that would be 7 secs between positions which may be a bit tight. Anyone want touse this workflow that could test?

mark_anderson_us wrote:But how does APG match the source images with the XML?

It appears that the APP/APG Papywizard Import wizard takes no notice of dates and times, but merely uses the sort order of the image filenames to 'match' source images with XML. As far as I can see, the first filename in the sort order gets associated with XML pict id 1 and so on.

mark_anderson_us wrote:But how does APG match the source images with the XML?

It appears that the APP/APG Papywizard Import wizard takes no notice of dates and times, but merely uses the sort order of the image filenames to 'match' source images with XML. As far as I can see, the first filename in the sort order gets associated with XML pict id 1 and so on.

mark_anderson_us wrote:But how does APG match the source images with the XML?

It appears that the APP/APG Papywizard Import wizard takes no notice of dates and times, but merely uses the sort order of the image filenames to 'match' source images with XML. As far as I can see, the first filename in the sort order gets associated with XML pict id 1 and so on.

So, I took an HDR panorama of 7 brackets, but only want to use 5. Is there a way to easily increase or decrease the number of brackets in the XML file? It didn't appear that it was quite possible yet to change it by x number up or down?

aaronpriest wrote:So, I took an HDR panorama of 7 brackets, but only want to use 5. Is there a way to easily increase or decrease the number of brackets in the XML file? It didn't appear that it was quite possible yet to change it by x number up or down?

Hi Aaron!

I use to process bracketed sets to HDR/tonemap first before stitching. You can have the T&C controller set to record ONE shot per position - no matter how much brackets the camera shoots per position.

The head triggers the camera, Promote or ML once - and camera/Promote/ML fire the camera x times - afaik Josef provided to you both T&C versions. If not you can change the firmware per email.

Recording EACH shot on each position makes it very uncomfortable to edit the xml when you want to change something. But you CAN do it. Manually.

This has some advantages:1) processing the sets first in a dedicated HDR/tonemap-application makes stitching MUCH faster and more reliable.2) you can easily skip exposures in the HDR/map-editor without influencing the XML3) APG doesntÂ´t do tonemapping but - simpler, less refined - fusioning instead.4) Sets containing very much images fusioned in APG needs a VERY capable machine with VERY much RAM. Dedicated applications have strategies to deal with hundreds of images easily.5) dedicated HDR/tonemap-applications like Photomatix provide options for dealing with ghosts in brackted images - this usually works well when you use the automated option.

When i shoot a sphere with 85mm i get 200 images. Using 5 or brackets this means 1000 resp. 1400 images. HDR/tonemapping them using a dedicated application is no big deal. Stitching the already processed 200 images in APG is no big deal also.

Try fusioning 1000/1400 images in APG . . . .

best, Klaus

Last edited by klausesser on Fri Jul 26, 2013 11:31 am, edited 1 time in total.

aaronpriest wrote:So, I took an HDR panorama of 7 brackets, but only want to use 5. Is there a way to easily increase or decrease the number of brackets in the XML file? It didn't appear that it was quite possible yet to change it by x number up or down?

If you pre-process the bracketed exposures before stitching as Klaus suggests then the tool should work to reduce co-ordinate records to one per shooting position in your XML - although I don't know if it works with XML files created by the Panoneed head: